This invention generally relates to a telecommunication network and, more particularly, to such a network with a mobile voice conferencing system and method.
Voice conferencing is a major revenue-generating category of services in the Public Switched Telephone Networks (PSTN). With rapid growth of digital wireless access, an era of Personal Communication Networks (PCN) is emerging in which the mobility of both terminals and users is the defining attribute. Currently, in known PSTN systems a wireless subscriber to a PCN can transparently access the conventional PSTN voice conferencing service. However, in the PSTN service, in the event of a connection loss to a conference participant, the burden of rejoining the conference is placed on the conference participant with the lost connection. In order for the participant to rejoin the conference after a lost connection due to any reason, the participant must redial a special voice conference number.
Because of the nature of the air-wave transmission, there is a higher likelihood of connection loss in the wireless cellular radio environment of a PCN than in a land based PSTN during a voice conference. Consequently, there is a greater chance that a PCN participant in a PSTN conference will be forced to redial the special voice conference number much more frequently to rejoin the conference than will a land based PSTN user of the same voice conference.
While more versatile multimedia conferencing services are emerging with the promise of superior scaleability and dynamic participation management (for example, Van Jacobson, "Multimedia Conferencing on the Internet," SIGCOMM 94 Conference Tutorial Notes, London, U.K., August 1994, Ref. 14 below), they can be accessed only with specialized terminals, often a specially adapted personal computer (PC) or a workstation, that are beyond the reach of most users worldwide. None yet accommodate the special attributes of mobility. The concept of a Personal Communication Network is an evolutionary step that is emerging from widely deployed Public Land Mobile Networks (PLMN) as illustrated in "Public Land Mobile Networks: ITU-T Recommendations Q.1000-Q.1063," and Recommendations cited therein, Geneva, Switzerland: International Telecommunications Union (ITU), Ref. 5 below, and in "Public Land Mobile Network: Mobile Application Part and Interfaces," CCITT Recommendations Q.1051-Q.1063, Blue Book, Vol. VI, Fascicle VI.13, Geneva, Switzerland: ITU, 1988, Ref. 6 below, which are hereby incorporated by reference.